Game publisher Midway joins Time Warner empire for $33M

The saga of Midway's financial problems is finally over, as nearly all of the …

There's no denying that gaming publisher Midway has had a rough time in the past year. After an insane saga of strange twists, turns, accusations, and increasingly dire news, most of us weren't entirely certain that the beleaguered publisher would actually survive to see 2010. Despite our doubts, it turns out that Midway is living to see another day, having just been acquired by Time Warner for $33 million.

Of course, this was just the start of the drama, as Midway's creditors were not happy with the current situation and were understandably concerned that Redstone had sold the company to a mysterious investor no one had actually heard of before this point. The creditors ended up filing a motion in bankruptcy court, simultaneously explaining how Midway's debt had skyrocketed over a short period of time and how the Redstone sale of company stock essentially crippled their chances at recovering the money they were owed.

Last week, Midway held an auction for its various assets; a few weeks beforehand, Time Warner was expected to make off with the lion's share of property for roughly $33 million. This turned out to be the case, as a Delaware bankruptcy judge approved the deal and Time Warner wound up acquiring most of the publisher's properties and studios. However, noticeably absent from this acquisition were two of Midway's prominent studios: Midway Newcastle and Midway San Diego, the offices responsible for games like Wheelman and TNA, respectively. While both of these studios are dangling over thin air at the moment, Joystiq spoke to a Midway representative who explained that they would close in 60 days if no one stepped up to buy them.

While this sounds ominous, the Midway rep seemed upbeat about the situation: ""For now those employees are continuing to work and it's still entirely possible that a bidder could come in and acquire the San Diego assets." As for Midway Newcastle, we can only hope that the studio will be picked up by someone else, as it would be a shame to see yet another development office wither and die.

It looks like this bizarre saga of Midway is finally coming to a close; joining the Time Warner fold seems appropriate based on the various projects the two have worked on together in the past. While there still is some uncertainty about the future of Midway's leftover parts, there's still the possibility that they will wind up in a good home. Still, we all know what happens to animals at the pound when they fail to find a "good home" in time.

13 Reader Comments

I am glad to see Midway got picked up by Time Warner but I am also sad they did. It seems that the monster companies with the deep coffers are scooping up every studio they can find.

EA "merged" Bioware and Mythic, effectively killing the interdependence of the two studios.

Soon like cable, we will see all the big names with every studio under their wings. EA, Microsoft, Time Warner, Sony. I hope we can still find studios that can support themselves but in these times finding people to hand you X-millions of dollars for a game is harder then it use to be.

Originally posted by engrey:Soon like cable, we will see all the big names with every studio under their wings. EA, Microsoft, Time Warner, Sony. I hope we can still find studios that can support themselves but in these times finding people to hand you X-millions of dollars for a game is harder then it use to be.

You'll still see home spun originals though, like World of Goo, Braid, and Plants vs. zombies. I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Still, we all know what happens to animals at the pound when they fail to find a "good home" in time.

R.I.P. Midway.

Y'know, I understand the suits need to get paid even as the company is sinking because they're supposedly doing something about the situation... but I object to them making a fucking killing while the peons don't even see a goddamn cent. It should be the other way around. The fucking MBAs should prove themselves by turning the company around first before getting any dough.

Originally posted by engrey:I am glad to see Midway got picked up by Time Warner but I am also sad they did. It seems that the monster companies with the deep coffers are scooping up every studio they can find.

EA "merged" Bioware and Mythic, effectively killing the interdependence of the two studios.

Soon like cable, we will see all the big names with every studio under their wings. EA, Microsoft, Time Warner, Sony. I hope we can still find studios that can support themselves but in these times finding people to hand you X-millions of dollars for a game is harder then it use to be.

Spoken like a man that doesn't have STEAM installed on his PC.

Seriously. Just load up STEAM and see how many indie companies exist. I just snagged Trine the other day. A nifty old school platformer with puzzles based upon physics (or more appropriately PhysX with full support for hardware nVidia based GPU's).

You'd think Time Warner would have learned by now. They sunk all kinds of money into buying Atari when video games were still just a fad. They got rid of a lot of the innovation that made Atari what it was, watched it do a long slide into oblivion, then sold off the remnants in a fire sale. When dotcoms were the fad, they bought AOL, watched it slide into oblivion, now they're looking to sell it off to anyone who'll take it. I'm not sure what fad they're trying to cash in on by buying Midway, but I don't see it going anywhere positive.